I’d never heard the term “DTR” before reading Maureen O’Connor’s article “How to Sneak In (Or Out) a Relationship’s Back Door” but I immediately recognized it as one of the core issues to confront when dating a bunch of people you’ve met off the internet (or through any other means).
Just like with discussions about STIs, in an ideal world we’d all sit down and have sober, earnest, forthright talks about our feelings regarding the course/path of a relationship and we could communicate our desires openly and fearlessly.
More realistically, moments where we try to “define the relationship” with someone who falls in the vast middle ground between fuck buddy and fiancée often are catalyzed by awkward social encounters (“So I noticed tonight you introduced me as your girlfriend, but…”), drunken desperation, or just irrepressible insecurity that you just can’t hold in anymore. And the protagonist in O’Connor’s article is more or less right that until you DTR, very few things are offlimits – though that doesn’t mean you won’t feel a bunch of guilt and confusion every time someone you’re dating (pre-DTR) texts to ask you what you’re up to and you hastily send a text that says “not that much, you?” during the brief interval between when your current bedmate walks off to take a postcoital bathroom pit stop and when he/she gets back.
A friend of mine asked me how things went the last time I had a DTR discussion and I’ve reproduced our discussion here:
mallory: hey did you or your lady dtr/bring up exclusivity
i’m polling people lol
me: uh
hard to answer
it’s a long, uninteresting story to some degree
but i guess it was probably more me than her
mallory: my favorite kinds of stories
ok cuz it was kind of brought up once and then we decided to revisit the talk later (after this weekend) and now im like ugh i need to have this talk
me: i mean
the need to dtr is only as extensive as your need to dtr
mallory: haha you’re so zen
me: ha
true
generally speaking i think usually if the other person isn’t gunning to dtr
you’re better off not trying to dtr
me: how long you been seeing him?
mallory: not too long, beginning of dec
Sent at 2:20 PM on Friday
me: what makes you wanna dtr
is it bc you really like him?
mallory: he said something once where i was like “uh are you my boyfriend” and he was like “do you want me to be?” and i was like “idk, maybe, cuz i like hanging out with you” and he expressed similarly but then i kind of just let it go
and then the next day we were like it’s maybe too soon for this, let’s revisit after we’ve spent more time together
me: tread lightly in these conversations
because when you defensively express ambivalence, it can easily perpetuate ambivalence on his part
mallory: makes sense
so now im like ugh if i’m going to be vulnerable and have feelings about this guy and we’re having sleepovers, i kind of want to be secure in exclusivity.
me: i feel like if someone asks you point blank what your feelings/desires are it’s pragmatically best (usually) to say honestly what it is
yeah i mean
most people respect when you make it clear what you want
even though there’s the risk he’ll tell you that what he wants is different
but to a large extent it’s best to find that out anyway – and i think the potentially fucking things up cost of lying/omitting/withholding are larger
mallory: you’re right. i’m just a wuss sometimes. chalk it up to a previous disasterous dtr attempt
me: yeah no question dtring is hard and scary
and involves a lot of judgment in knowing when and how to bring it up
and knowing the diff between doing it out of genuine affection versus emotional weakness/fear
me: it won’t go well if it’s coming from a place of fear
which is why i advocate the full court press on meeting people
meet a shitload of people
me: then you’ll be able to appreciate the ones you really like best
and you’ll have the confidence to fearlessly ask people to dtr when you know you wanna
mallory: i think my need to DTR is two-fold, one is just the sex part, one is cuz yesterday he met some old coworkers of mine and i was like “this is my friend brad?”
and in my head i was like ugh awkward introduction
me: yeah i think “friend” or “buddy” is appropriate pre-DTR
mallory: so like if im going to include him more in my life and meet my friends i want to know what this is
me: legit
it’s hard to know when/why one should dtr
mallory: the few ppl he’s met so far in my life have gotten “this is brad” or “this is my friend brad”
me: yeah but they probably already knew who he was
mallory: yeah
blergh
anyway
100 Problems 